Gitae Shin/Exercise 2 (p. 11)/Narrative Composition(2) Tuesday & 09:00~11:00

Read the following questions and choose three of them that you think you can answer in detail. Then write about your past experiences with writing, using the three questions you chose as a guide.

 

1. What are your earliest memories related to writing?

: The earliest memory I have related to writing is about a short verse I wrote when I was 5. Although I do not remember the details, my parents keep talking about it whenever we have family gathering. The poem was about me being jealous of the moon because it can go wherever it wants to go without any restriction. It would be really great if I had the script of my work, but unfortunately I lost it when my family moved into the house now my parents live in. This memory might have made me have interest in reading poems, especially about romance.

 

2. How do you feel about writing in your first language compared to writing in English.

: I do not know why, but everything goes so well so far. When I walked into this classroom and realized there were so many familiar people whom I have taken same classes with. However, as soon as the session started and the professor gave us instructions on what we would do during the course, I became nervous and afraid of what we should do. Even writing in my first language, Korean, is not easy depending on the topic and genre of it. For example, I have never written thesis, so that kind of formal and academic writings is the one I am not good at. On the other hand, I think writings not related to those fields can be dealt with relatively ease. Nevertheless it does not necessarily means that I am confident with it. It is just that I can write it without pressure and freely as I want.

In terms of writing in English, I do have fear of making mistakes, organizing and developing ideas. Also that fear comes from my imperfect grammar knowledge and limited vocabularies I could use. As I did not live in English-speaking countries for a long time, though living in America for 10 months, I do make errors such as missing articles, wrong collocations, and so on. Furthermore, the result of my writing seems too Korean-style English writing which needs improving.

 

3. When you are writing a paper for a class, do you try to please yourself or the teacher? Explain.

: I used to try to please only myself based on the viewpoint that I am "the writer!" Until high school, there was no problem with that because students are not required to write papers in systematical and organized way in Korean education. However, everything changed as soon as I walked into campus. The form of test was not multiple choices in most cases. I had to develop and organize my ideas within a certain period of time under a lot of pressure. Moreover, I had to come up with appropriate answers which professors, marker grader, think right based on what I learned. Therefore, considering how he or she will think became one thing that I have to take into consideration. However, it does not always mean that I follow the standard all the time. As to law classes, there might be several approaches to one problem, so the most important thing is the way I reason. In other words, how I develop the reasoning by supporting the details with appropriate examples and actual sources of law. This is very tough, still I can manage to do it with effort.